Lewis and Clark camped here on August 22, 1804, reported much elk sign, and held the first election in the Northwest that evening. In 1856, the Sioux City-Ft. Randall Military Road passed by this place. Eli Wixson arrived on July 22, 1859, and built a log cabin for travelers and a trade store for Indians. In 1860, John R. Wood and family arrived, as did George Stickney, the first attorney. In March 1861, Wood and Sheldon hauled logs for an Episcopal Church organized by Melanchton Hoyt. N.J. Wallace taught the first school in 1861-62. Wixson became the first postmaster on July 9, 1860, and by 1862 had a two-story hotel where the militia rendezvoused during the Indian scare of 1862. With sixty-one of its ninety members from Elk Point, this group became Company B, Dakota Cavalry, under Captain William Tripp. Cole County, now Union County, was created in 1862, and Elk Point became the third county seat by popular vote in April 1865. The village was organized on April 24, 1862, with John R. Wood, Eli B. Wixson, Myron Sheldon, W.W. Adams, and Preston M. Hotchkiss as trustees, and it was incorporated by the legislature in a twenty-three-page act on January 10, 1873. Fairchild and Green opened the first regular store in 1865. The Leader, edited by F.O. Wisner on 3/17/70, was the first newspaper. The first child was a son of Joseph LaBarge in 1861. J.W. Hoffman had the first flour mill in 1873, succeeded by M.W. Sheafe’s Dakota mills, the first roller mill in the territory, in 1881, and the largest, with a four thousand barrel warehouse. The Dakota Southern reached Elk Point on Nov. 13, 1872. It was never a steamboat town.